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ST_Covers - Availability: 1.5 - support for geography was introduced. Returns 1 (TRUE) if no point in Geometry B is outside
Geometry A
ST_DFullyWithin - Availability: 1.5.0 Returns true if all of the geometries are within the specified distance of one another
ST_DWithin - Availability: 1.5.0 support for geography was introduced Returns true if the geometries are within the specified
distance of one another. For geometry units are in those of spatial reference and For geography units are in meters and
measurement is defaulted to use_spheroid=true (measure around spheroid), for faster check, use_spheroid=false to measure
along sphere.
ST_Distance - Availability: 1.5.0 geography support was introduced in 1.5. Speed improvements for planar to better handle
large or many vertex geometries For geometry type Returns the 2-dimensional cartesian minimum distance (based on spatial
ref) between two geometries in projected units. For geography type defaults to return spheroidal minimum distance between
two geographies in meters.
ST_Distance_Sphere - Availability: 1.5 - support for other geometry types besides points was introduced. Prior versions only
work with points. Returns minimum distance in meters between two lon/lat geometries. Uses a spherical earth and radius of
6370986 meters. Faster than ST_Distance_Spheroid, but less accurate. PostGIS versions prior to 1.5 only implemented for
points.
ST_Distance_Spheroid - Availability: 1.5 - support for other geometry types besides points was introduced. Prior versions
only work with points. Returns the minimum distance between two lon/lat geometries given a particular spheroid. PostGIS
versions prior to 1.5 only support points.
ST_DumpPoints - Availability: 1.5.0 Returns a set of geometry_dump (geom,path) rows of all points that make up a geometry.
ST_Envelope - Availability: 1.5.0 behavior changed to output double precision instead of float4 Returns a geometry representing the double precision (float8) bounding box of the supplied geometry.
ST_GMLToSQL - Availability: 1.5 Return a specified ST_Geometry value from GML representation. This is an alias name
for ST_GeomFromGML
ST_GeomFromGML - Availability: 1.5 Takes as input GML representation of geometry and outputs a PostGIS geometry
object
ST_GeomFromKML - Availability: 1.5 Takes as input KML representation of geometry and outputs a PostGIS geometry
object
&& - Availability: 1.5.0 support for geography was introduced. Returns TRUE if As bounding box overlaps Bs.
~= - Availability: 1.5.0 changed behavior Returns TRUE if As bounding box is the same as Bs.
ST_HausdorffDistance - Availability: 1.5.0 - requires GEOS >= 3.2.0 Returns the Hausdorff distance between two geometries.
Basically a measure of how similar or dissimilar 2 geometries are. Units are in the units of the spatial reference system of the
geometries.
ST_Intersection - Availability: 1.5 support for geography data type was introduced. (T) Returns a geometry that represents the
shared portion of geomA and geomB. The geography implementation does a transform to geometry to do the intersection and
then transform back to WGS84.
ST_Intersects - Availability: 1.5 support for geography was introduced. Returns TRUE if the Geometries/Geography "spatially
intersect" - (share any portion of space) and FALSE if they dont (they are Disjoint). For geography -- tolerance is 0.00001
meters (so any points that close are considered to intersect)
ST_Length - Availability: 1.5.0 geography support was introduced in 1.5. Returns the 2d length of the geometry if it is a
linestring or multilinestring. geometry are in units of spatial reference and geography are in meters (default spheroid)
ST_LongestLine - Availability: 1.5.0 Returns the 2-dimensional longest line points of two geometries. The function will only
return the first longest line if more than one, that the function finds. The line returned will always start in g1 and end in g2.
The length of the line this function returns will always be the same as st_maxdistance returns for g1 and g2.
ST_MakeEnvelope - Availability: 1.5 Creates a rectangular Polygon formed from the given minimums and maximums. Input
values must be in SRS specified by the SRID.

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ST_MaxDistance - Availability: 1.5.0 Returns the 2-dimensional largest distance between two geometries in projected units.
ST_ShortestLine - Availability: 1.5.0 Returns the 2-dimensional shortest line between two geometries

8.9.2 PostGIS Functions new, behavior changed, or enhanced in 1.4

The functions given below are PostGIS functions that were introduced or enhanced in the 1.4 release.
Populate_Geometry_Columns - Ensures geometry columns have appropriate spatial constraints and exist in the geometry_columns
table. Availability: 1.4.0

ST_AsSVG - Returns a Geometry in SVG path data given a geometry or geography object. Availability: 1.2.2 . Availability:
1.4.0 Changed in PostGIS 1.4.0 to include L command in absolute path to conform to http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/paths.html#PathData

ST_Collect - Return a specified ST_Geometry value from a collection of other geometries. Availability: 1.4.0 - ST_Collect(geomarray)
was introduced. ST_Collect was enhanced to handle more geometries faster.
ST_ContainsProperly - Returns true if B intersects the interior of A but not the boundary (or exterior). A does not contain
properly itself, but does contain itself. Availability: 1.4.0 - requires GEOS >= 3.1.0.
ST_Extent - an aggregate function that returns the bounding box that bounds rows of geometries. Availability: 1.4.0 As of
1.4.0 now returns a box3d_extent instead of box2d object.
ST_GeoHash - Return a GeoHash representation (geohash.org) of the geometry. Availability: 1.4.0
ST_IsValidReason - Returns text stating if a geometry is valid or not and if not valid, a reason why. Availability: 1.4 - requires
GEOS >= 3.1.0.
ST_LineCrossingDirection - Given 2 linestrings, returns a number between -3 and 3 denoting what kind of crossing behavior.
0 is no crossing. Availability: 1.4
ST_LocateBetweenElevations - Return a derived geometry (collection) value with elements that intersect the specified range
of elevations inclusively. Only 3D, 4D LINESTRINGS and MULTILINESTRINGS are supported. Availability: 1.4.0
ST_MakeLine - Creates a Linestring from point geometries. Availability: 1.4.0 - ST_MakeLine(geomarray) was introduced.
ST_MakeLine aggregate functions was enhanced to handle more points faster.
ST_MinimumBoundingCircle - Returns the smallest circle polygon that can fully contain a geometry. Default uses 48 segments
per quarter circle. Availability: 1.4.0 - requires GEOS
ST_Union - Returns a geometry that represents the point set union of the Geometries. Availability: 1.4.0 - ST_Union was
enhanced. ST_Union(geomarray) was introduced and also faster aggregate collection in PostgreSQL. If you are using GEOS
3.1.0+ ST_Union will use the faster Cascaded Union algorithm described in http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/2009/01/must-fasterunions-in-postgis-14.html

8.9.3 PostGIS Functions new in 1.3

The functions given below are PostGIS functions that were introduced in the 1.3 release.
ST_AsGeoJSON - Return the geometry as a GeoJSON element. Availability: 1.3.4
ST_SimplifyPreserveTopology - Returns a "simplified" version of the given geometry using the Douglas-Peuker algorithm.
Will avoid creating derived geometries (polygons in particular) that are invalid. Availability: 1.3.3